


Notes From Four Bedsides

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-14
Updated: 2010-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-11 02:18:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Janet Fraiser writes some "eyes only" notes to her staff on the care and feeding of SG-1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notes From Four Bedsides

Okay. Let’s get a few things clear. These notes are meant for the eyes of my medical staff only. Colonel, if you are reading this, you have broken into my desk and I will make you pay during your next physical in ways you would not believe.

So, assuming Colonel O’Neill has now closed this notebook and returned it to its rightful place – hidden under the latest issue of the AMA Journal and behind the cheap whiskey that is for medicinal purposes only   – let us begin.

These handy hints are not intended to replace the official medical records. They are simply an addendum, an addition, designed to help those of you unfamiliar with dealing with SG-1. Because, make no mistake, SG-1 is unique. And I refer to the team as a single entity deliberately here. In many ways, the individual members are a complementary whole.

Prick one, and they all bleed. Often copiously.

As I write this, they have been a team for a year, and they have been clogging up my infirmary far more frequently than I ever expected. Hence, the obvious need for these notes.

I should state, for the record, that I consider each member of the team a friend. This may go beyond what a doctor is expected to feel for her patient. But this place is whacked out on a good day. On a bad day, and there have been many, the members of SG-1 need all the friends they can get.  I’m proud and ridiculously pleased to consider myself one. If this niggles at your professional boundaries, I say get over it. This is the SGC and normal rules do not apply. I do not intend to tell you how you should feel when dealing with any patient, but I felt you should know where I’m coming from with this little missive.

Are you sitting comfortably? (Major Raby, don’t take that literally. You sit on your padded ass way too much as it is. Don’t think I don’t know that). Then I shall begin.

_Colonel Jack O’Neill._

Hard-assed commander he may be, but he handles pain in strange and mysterious ways, not all of them super-manly. The more serious the injury, the more stoic he is. I’ve seen him bitch and whine about a hangnail far more than a broken leg, internal injuries and hypothermia combined. Note: When he woke from said broken leg, internal injuries and hypothermia, his first thought was, “Carter, Daniel and Teal’c okay? Crap. I’m gonna pass out.” This is a common occurrence.  The concern, I mean, not the passing out, although they do that a lot, too. Each team member is far more concerned for the others’ welfare than his or her own. You get used to it. Have your answer ready.  Lie a little if you have to – “They’re fine. They’re sleeping” usually buys you some time -- if it gets him or her to rest/eat/drink/sleep. If you do lie, be aware there will be consequences later.  The Colonel can do looming like no one else. This may have something to do with the fact that he’s twice as tall as me. But then most people are, I guess.

Colonel O’Neill handles physical pain far better than he deals with emotional pain, insofar as he doesn’t deal with the latter at all. His chosen coping mechanism is to bury it. If he can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. I think he feels that way about God, too. Although I don’t think that was always the case. Under no circumstances suggest any form of counseling, and if you value your life, do not mention Dr MacKenzie at all. The Colonel really is not a big fan of that bark like a chicken, cluck like a dog stuff.

Ibuprofen makes him constipated. This is not in his medical notes because he doesn’t think I know. He hates talking about body-related matters. Oh, and he never vomits. According to him. For some reason that is unfathomable to me, he likes to believe he has an iron constitution.  Says the man who cannot stomach MRE beef. Why this bothers him so much I have no idea. It’s not as though knowing he throws up like the rest of us would make me think he’s less of a hero.

I use that word advisedly, by the way. He_ is_ a hero. They all are. Just don’t ever tell him, or them, I said that.

The Colonel is a natural-born mother hen. It may not appear so, but he is. His innate concern for others manifests in oblique ways. When Carter is injured, he’ll send Teal’c to see her, armed with magazines the Colonel has bought. His choice isn’t always the best. When Sam was recuperating after being stranded in the ice cavern, he bought a copy of Knit N Style for her. Teal’c insisted _he _bought it, but the way Sam smiled told me she guessed the truth. When Daniel came back after the Nem incident, the Colonel bought him a sushi book ... then turned up at Daniel’s place the day after I sent Daniel home from the infirmary, saying he would show him how to cook the fish.  It was an excuse, of course, and one that he just had to disguise with humor.  Do not underestimate his intelligence, even though he likes it when people do for some strange reason. When Teal’c returned from Chulak after seeking a Primta for Rya’c, the Colonel insisted that the whole of SG-1 sit through a night-long showing of the Star Wars trilogy in Teal’c’s quarters. He said he hadn’t seen the films in too long. In truth, he knew Teal’c would not want to rest that night.

Like I said – if one bleeds, they all do.

Do not try to remove the Colonel from any injured member of SG-1’s bedside. Reverse psychology is the only thing that works. “Daniel needs 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep in order to begin to heal, Colonel.”  It’s sneaky, but it works.

_Captain Samantha Carter_

Captain Carter is a great gal and an infuriating patient. The word workaholic was invented for her. She has no life. She has a best friend ... me ... and three good friends in her team mates, and we all tell her the same thing ... “Get a life Sam/Carter/Captain Carter. That’s an order.” She never listens. She gets hurt in lab-related and control room-related and gateroom-related incidents as regularly as she does on missions.

She gets angry and depressed when she can’t work. It’s a form of addiction. With most women, it’s shoes and purses and sparkly things. With Sam, it’s wormhole physics and nanites and jury-rigged DHDs. She looks better in combat boots than high heels anyway, so maybe it’s just as well that work is her obsession.

It really is best to let her do some work while in the infirmary if at all possible. She’ll only fret about what isn’t being done while she lies there trying to get well.

Morphine makes her cry and go horribly emo. Use an alternative. Her medical notes merely say she reacts badly to it, but they don’t specify how.  An emo Sam is a scary Sam.

Blue jello is the ideal pick-me-up when she refuses to touch infirmary food. It’s disgusting stuff but she’s very fond of it and it’s one of the few things she will eat without being force-fed.

_Teal’c_

In many ways, Teal’c is my ideal patient. He follows orders. He does this naturally as part of his legacy as First Prime.

However, once he starts to feel better, he will want to be out of the infirmary and fighting the bad guys, stat. Taking time out is anathema  to a Jaffa. I sometimes think he sees rest as another word for failure. Junior – as I believe Colonel O’Neill has named Teal’c’s symbiote – does a wonderful job when it comes to rapid healing. Teal’c is not used to feeling unwell or injured. Thus, on the odd occasion when it is necessary to keep him bed-bound for a while, he finds it hard to take. Recuperation is a Tauri concept, and an unacceptable one at that.

One way of persuading him to stay put is to ask him to tell you tales of the Jaffa and their heroic struggle against the Goa’uld. The stories are long. Very long. Too long, actually, but they do serve a purpose.  Get him started and hours will have passed before he realizes it. You will realize it, though.

He will not drink bovine lactose, but he loves coffee. Junior, however, doesn’t, and this can cause unfortunate side-effects in terms of flatulence and upset stomachs. It would seem that symbiotes get easily miffed.

Teal’c is the original immovable object when a team mate is injured. He will stand sentinel until he is sure all is well. It is best not to interfere. He is particularly protective of Dr. Jackson, as the team civilian. I also think there is an element of guilt with regard to Sha’uri, and watching out for Dr. Jackson helps assuage this. The two of them seem to have reached some sort of accord on the matter.

Teal’c is an enigma, and I would not want to psycho-analyze him too closely.

Junior would never let me anyway. I would not want to get on the wrong side of a symbiote.

_Dr. Daniel Jackson_

Ah, Dr. Jackson. Aka Infirmary Poster Boy or The Patient From Hell.

While appearing to follow instructions and “do as he’s damn well told” (the latter quotes Colonel O’Neill who is caring, really, but can’t show it, see notes on Colonel O’Neill), Dr. Jackson out-sneakies me, and that takes some doing.

He has only to bat those large, sad-when-they-need-to-be blue eyes and every member of the infirmary staff appears willing to do his bidding. So. Let me be clear. Do NOT smuggle in any of the following:  Reference books, personal journals, copies of Budge (his blood pressure is frequently a problem as it is) the occasional Thermos of coffee or requests for translations from (insert SG team designation here).

Like Captain Carter, he will work until he drops, even if he has already dropped and that is why he’s in the infirmary in the first place.

If he says he’s “fine” he isn’t.  If he says “I have no idea” he really hasn’t. So, yes, he’s tough to get a read on, and I’m only just starting to get a handle on the care and feeding of him. His team-mates understand him pretty well, though, and it’s advisable to be guided by them.

His empathy for his friends is obvious and deep and he can often pay the price for that. He virtually tore himself in two splitting his time between the Colonel and Captain Carter after their sojurn under the ice. He wasn’t well himself, but he spent all his time playing poker/chess/watching sports (which he neither likes nor understands) with Colonel O’Neill and talking science/base gossip/academia with Sam. He _willed _them better.

He hates taking painkillers (“they make me fuzzy and tired and I can’t afford that”) can be stubborn and cutting and swears a blue streak if you suggest sedatives. It’s kind of cute to watch ugly words spill from those innocent-looking lips.

He heals better if his team-mates are around, which they usually are on some sort of telepathic rota basis; one turns up when another leaves, with no seeming pre-organization.  He takes comfort from Teal’c’s simple presence, allows himself to relax as Sam reads to him or they snark over the SGC’s everyday happenings, and sleeps much better when the Colonel slips into his bedside seat. This last is so funny to observe; the Colonel drops by after he thinks Daniel is asleep, so he thinks Daniel doesn’t know he’s there. Daniel pretends to be asleep until the Colonel arrives, then feels safe enough to rest properly, so falls asleep for real.

Men.

The complex relationships between all four of them are intriguing. The Colonel and Dr. Jackson’s friendship fascinates me the most of all, but the ties that bind are strong between them all.

It kind of scares me, actually. In the normal run of military things they’d have been rotated out by now. But this place runs on its own rules. They work so well together and save the world on a weekly basis.

Somehow, they’re the glue that holds the SGC together and they’re stuck for good.

There will be lots of work ahead of us in keeping these four alive, people.

But that is our job and our privilege.

 

_ADDENDUM: Four days post -4C3. _

Dr. Jackson is gone. I couldn’t save him. Colonel O’Neill, Major Carter and Teal’c are haunting the SGC like ghosts. I feel as though I have to save them now, and I don’t know how. Formal counseling has been recommended but refused. They will see each other through this. No one else can.

I’m writing these notes now because I think we have to tread very softly in our treatment of SG-1 from here on in. The team will never be the same.  I can’t believe their story ends here.

Dr. Jackson’s official medical file has been sealed and filed away.

I’m keeping this one open.

Just in case.


End file.
